Lissitsa Sabina, Madar Galit
School of Communication, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel.
Faculty of Health Sciences, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel.
Isr J Health Policy Res. 2018 Oct 26;7(1):66. doi: 10.1186/s13584-018-0260-x.
The current research focuses on trends of Internet adoption and digital uses among people with disabilities over a thirteen-year period.
The study is based on data elicited from a repeated cross-sectional study collected by means of Annual Social Surveys conducted by Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics between 2003 and 2015. The sample included 95,145 respondents, among them 22,290 respondents with disabilities.
The rate of Internet access and digital uses increased continuously among disabled people; however the gap between them and the population without disabilities was preserved. We found that Internet use depends on a number of socio-economic characteristic. Socio-demographic variables were much more powerful in predicting Internet use vs non-use among the total population, compared to predicting digital uses among Internet users.
Our findings make it possible to identify disadvantaged groups in which disability intersects with low rates of Internet adoption and belonging to unprivileged groups: Arabs, the religious, the elderly, lower SES individuals. The effects of most of these variables did not change in the period under study. Generally, we recommend finding a way to promote courses that focus on promoting digital literacy in general and eHealth literacy in particular in small groups of people of similar age, digital skill level and motor / health problems. Considering the high representation of Arabs among people with disabilities and lower rates of Internet adoption and use among Arabs, it is recommended that efforts continue to increase the scope and quality of Arabic language content published on Israeli eHealth sites. In order to diminish income-based digital divide we recommend providing publicly accessible free information technologies, for example, in community clubs, senior citizen clubs, and independent- and assisted- living projects for the disabled.
当前研究聚焦于13年间残疾人互联网使用及数字应用的趋势。
该研究基于以色列中央统计局在2003年至2015年期间通过年度社会调查收集的重复横断面研究得出的数据。样本包括95145名受访者，其中22290名残疾受访者。
残疾人的互联网接入率和数字应用率持续上升；然而他们与非残疾人群体之间的差距依然存在。我们发现互联网使用取决于一些社会经济特征。与预测互联网用户的数字应用相比，社会人口统计学变量在预测总人口中互联网使用与否方面的作用要强大得多。
我们的研究结果使得识别弱势群体成为可能，在这些群体中，残疾与低互联网使用率以及属于弱势群体（阿拉伯人、宗教人士、老年人、社会经济地位较低者）相互交织。在研究期间，这些变量中的大多数影响并未改变。总体而言，我们建议找到一种方法来推广课程，这些课程尤其注重在年龄、数字技能水平和运动/健康问题相似的小群体中提升数字素养，特别是电子健康素养。鉴于阿拉伯人在残疾人中占比高且阿拉伯人的互联网采用率和使用率较低，建议继续努力扩大以色列电子健康网站上发布的阿拉伯语内容的范围并提高其质量。为了缩小基于收入的数字鸿沟，我们建议提供可公开访问的免费信息技术，例如，在社区俱乐部、老年人俱乐部以及针对残疾人的独立生活和辅助生活项目中。
